I'm glad you liked it, Alexa. A few years ago, I put about 200 of our family favorite recipes onto a CD for our girls. Every one had the story of the recipe that often prompted memories of more than just that one dish. Here's the rambling one for the tomato pudding: THE STORY: Sometimes we forget that in previous generations, not many fresh vegetables were available in the winter. Since she was a little girl, one of NanaÂs favorite foods was tomatoes. Her birthday was in winter so your great-grandmother would always keep a jar or two of home canned tomatoes set aside for her birthday. SheÂd make what they called tomato pudding for dinner that night. She used her own stale bread crumbs instead of the Pepperidge Farm but that most closely resembles the flavor my mom remembered. That's why we still have this dish at Thanksgiving Dinner - to remember to be thankful for canned tomatoes. LOL Every summer, Aunt Bertie would host two or three canning weeks. We'd stay there, along with Nana, Aunts Betty, Evelyn, Margie and their kids. We'd have assembly lines to can and freeze all sorts of fruits and vegetables but tomatoes, peaches, raspberries, corn and green beans were the ones I remember most vividly. With the tomatoes, we'd can them plain, stewed, as ketchup, spaghetti sauce, straight tomato juice, and a variation of V-8 that my dad really liked. No salsa in those days. For years, Jodi and I were the tomato (and peach) peelers. Greg and Linda were the boilers and would dip the tomatoes in boiling water for just a few seconds and then put them into a cake pan to cool a bit before we slipped the skins off and passed them along. Along the same lines, people would add small chunks of bread to thicken and "stretch" stewed tomatoes, even in restaurants. I hadnÂt thought of that until now because you rarely see the bread added anymore and I haven't make them that way since the 1960's.

Hi raggiemom, I also did quite a bit of research before I purchased my Livingstone countertop. I had it installed right before Thanksgiving, so I don't have a lot of wear and tear information. I have four grown sons though and they don't pay much attention to what they set down on it. I had Corian in my last house and I do believe this will prove to be comparable. Have you seen the Livingstone website? www.livingstonesurfaces.com The price as you say, was not that much of a difference that I wouldn't have purchased the Corian if I really felt like this was not a good product. I really did like the color choices too. I don't think you will be disappointed. Hope this helps.

Eleena, I am sorry, I seem to have been optimistic in my earlier report on the price. Let me explain. I paid $15/sq. ft for the raw materials. (This was a 50% off sale from M. Teixeira's usual price of $30.) Shipping added another $10/sq. ft. to the price of the raw materials, so that comes to about $25/sq. ft. However, that is for the raw slabs. Obviously, I had to buy more square footage than my actual countertop area. After factoring in the reduced area, my price was about $36/sq. ft. of installed countertop. Finally, there was labor. I did almost all of the fabrication myself, but there is no way I could possibly carry the slabs to install them. I "hired" some friends and their young son to help carry them to the fabrication spot for the cost of a nice dinner. I also had to pay some other young'uns to carry the slabs into the kitchen after fabrication. So these labor costs bumped my total costs up to just over $40/sq. ft. I apologize for misleading with my selective memory!

That's just the nature of acrylic solid surface. Acrylic (or polyester) resins are basically solid plastic and not scratch resistant (or heat resistant). Dark colors show the scratches a lot more than light surfaces because the acrylic matrix always shows as white when scratched. Glossy surfaces show the scratches a lot more than matte surfaces as well. Now, those scratches can be professionally buffed out when they get too bad, unlike laminate countertops that when scratched are ruined. But this isnt' something you'll want to spring for every year as it's in the $300 range for an average counter. Even then, deep scratches will remain. Use cutting boards and trivets and try not to slide things across your counters. Pick the cups up and put them down, etc.